A Study On The Relationship Among Junior High School Students’ Academic Emotions, Learning Interest And Mathematics Grades

As important non-intellectual factors, academic emotions are criticalfor learning process.Studies have shown that positive academic emotions can enhance students’ learningmotivation, attention, and cognitive processing capacity, whereas negative ones can be notconducive to students’ physical and mental development. Academic interests are foundation ofand closely related to learning activities. Middle school is a key time to foster positiveacademic emotions and academic interests. Thus, it is necessary to study the relations betweenacademic emotions and academic interests. Also it can provide theoretical support tointervene and cultivate academic emotions in classrooms. With469participants from seventhto ninth grade in Yanbian, this study uses math to investigate present situation of academicemotions of middle school students, and their relation with academic interests and academicachievement. The questionnaires included in this study are Academic Emotions Questionnairefor Adolescents by Guoliang Yu and Yan Dong, Inventory for Academic Interests in Math byShuang Zhang, and self-compiled math exams by teachers.The results are as follows:(1)Probability of occurrence for math academic emotions of middle school studentsshows that positive ones are higher than negative ones and high arousal ones are higher thanlow arousal ones; math academic interests are on the moderate level.(2)There are significant gender differences on math academic emotions: girls score higherthan boys on negative high arousal emotions, anxiety, and depression. However, there is nosignificant gender difference on math academic interests. There is no significant difference ongrade.(3)There is a significant positive relation between positive academic emotions andinterests; whereas a negative relation between negative academic emotions and interests.Math academic interests and academic achievement are positively related.(4)Math academic emotions and interests can be good predictors for math academicachievement for middle school students.(5)Math academic emotions are partial mediators in the relation between academicinterests and academic achievement.